The door opening on the right makes sense not only because of right handed people, but I presume that someone wanting to put something in the microwave would leave that hand free to operate the controls and hold the thing they want to put in the microwave in their other hand, leaving the right free to help swing the door open. Once the door is open, they can use their now-free left hand to close it.

And if I may hijack: does anyone remember seeing a refrigerator whose door opens from either side? I distinctly remember seeing one in college so it was probably a minifridge. I don't recall how in the world the door didn't fall off every time it was opened though.

And if I may hijack: does anyone remember seeing a refrigerator whose door opens from either side? I distinctly remember seeing one in college so it was probably a minifridge. I don't recall how in the world the door didn't fall off every time it was opened though.

Do you mean at any given time it could be opened from either side?

My big frige can open on either side, but the screws all have to be taken out and moved.

I've never seen one, personally, but I would guess that applying pressure on one side would cause the hinge and the latch on that side to both disengage. Applying pressure in the center would not provide enough pressure to trigger the response. (An even easier way would be to simply have the sort of latch that ancient fridges had, so that to open from one side you would have to engage a particular lever that would disengage the protections on that side while locking the mechanisms on the far side. Station wagons and SUVs have had alternative latches (at 90° orientation to each other) on their tailgates since the 1960s.)

And if I may hijack: does anyone remember seeing a refrigerator whose door opens from either side? I distinctly remember seeing one in college so it was probably a minifridge. I don't recall how in the world the door didn't fall off every time it was opened though.

They sell 2-packs of some older video games in a box with this sort of hinge. You flip the box open one way, you see info about one game; flip it the other way and you see info on the other game. Maybe this crude illustration will help:

Code:

a-----b
\ /
\ /
\ /
\
/ \
/ \
/ \
c-----d

The line ab represents the main part of the fridge, cd represents the door, and ad and bc represent two independent metal straps. There are swiveling mounts at each lettered point. In a real hinge this whole contraption would lie flat, but I drew it this way so you can see how it's all connected. Also, a fridge door would probably have two of these hinges, on the top and bottom.

When you open the fridge from the right, a and c stay near each other, while the door and strap ad swivel outwards together. Open it from the left, and instead you have b and d staying together, while the door swivels together with strap bc. It would look sort of like this:

Sounds almost like a trick wallet I made from instructions in a kids book (when I was a kid obviously) Depending on which way you opened it you could drop a bank note inside it and when you opened it again it was trapped behind a big "X"

And, of course, the big-ass station wagons of yesteryear (aka the VistaCruiser) had a tailgate that could either flip down like a pick-up truck, or to the side like a door

When I was a kid, we had a mid- or late-70s model Chevy Caprice station wagon (complete with fake wood paneling!) that did this. The glass window had to be down before you could open it down like a pick-up truck, though. When we used the third-row seat (which faced backwards), we opened it sideways like a door. It was easier to get in and out.